One problem with putting so many people in prison, and keeping them there for so long, is that you end up with a large number of prisoners with dementia like illnesses.

The routines of prison help to mask some symptoms of those illnesses. And because some of these prisoners are in for serious, violent, crimes it's hard to release them to nursing homes.

Here's one prison's response:

(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dement...)

I submitted it to HN here: (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649276)